Draft:Justin Tausig

Justin Tausig (born July 28, 1970 in New York, New York) is an American epee fencer.

Early life
Tausig was born in New York, New York on July 28, 1970.

When he was three years old, he saw Ivanhoe with Robert Taylor, Elizabeth Taylor and Joan Fontaine. A few years later, he saw The Adventures of Robin Hood with Errol Flynn.

He started fencing in 1983 when his father showed him a New York Times article about Giorgio Santelli https://www.nytimes.com/1983/06/22/sports/old-master-of-a-quick-and-subtle-art.html) Tausig contacted Santelli and met him early in July of 1983. Ten minutes after they first met, Santelli told Tausig, "You are going to be my new student." Tausig became Santelli’s last student and worked with him until he died in 1985.  He went on to work with Jerzy Grzymski, another United States Fencing Association Hall-of-Famer, at Salle Santelli NJ.

Tausig attended the [St. Ann's School https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Ann%27s_School_(Brooklyn)]

Salle Santelli New Jersey
After the death of Giorgio Santelli in 1985, Tausig continued training at Salle Santelli, New Jersey under the late Maestro's assistant coach, Jerzy Grzymski. In 1987, he competed in his first National competition, the under seventeen Junior Olympics, and took 2nd with a record of 25 wins and 2 losses. A week later he won the under-19 New Jersey Championships, his first tournament win.

Some of the fencers he trained with at Santelli's included Lee Shelley, Donna Stone, Steve Griffiths, and Roger Cummings.

Undergraduate
Fencing for New York University, where he graduated in 1993 with a degree in Classical Archaeology, Tausig was a 2-time University Athletic Association team Champion and qualified for the NCAA Championships in 1993. While fencing for NYU he was named the UAA (University Athletic Association) Athlete of the Week three times, the first time when we went 12-0 on his first day fencing for NYU, the second time was when having was diagnosed with mononucleosis and against doctor's orders, he fenced against Princeton and went 3-0 including the winning bout at 13-13 against Princeton's Team Captain and the third time when he went 3-0 against a Notre Dame team that was ranked 1st in the country by the NCAA.

Moving to Paris
In 1993, Tausig moved to Paris, France to study at the Racing Club de France under Maitre Stephane Riboud and Maitre Daniel Levavasseur. Some of the fencers Tausig trained with at the Racing Club de France include Laura Flessel-Colovic, Hughes Obry, Sanguita Tripathi, Cedric Pillac, Valerie Barlois, Robert Leroux and Frederic Bouliere.

It was in the highly competitive atmosphere of RCF that Tausig began to taste success at the International level. During his eleven years at RCF Tausig distinguished himself both as an individual and team fencer, ranking 38th in the World (before zonal competitions existed), and #1 in the U.S. 5 times including at the end of the 2001/2002 season.

He is a 4-time World Championship team member. (1997, 1998, 1999, 2002) He qualified for the 2001 World Championships Team. Tausig qualified for the 1999 World University Games He competed at the 1999 Pan-American Games in Winnipeg, Canada

He won the Men's Epee Team National Championships with Salle Santelli NJ, in 1994

World Cup results
At World Cups in individual competitions, Justin earned 1 Bronze medal, 3 top 8s, 5 top 16s, 19 top 32s, and numerous 64s. He took 4th place at the World Cup Team competition with the U.S. Men's Epee Team (Poitiers, 2003) and was the anchor of the team that beat Italy for the first time in US Fencing history (Barcelona, 2003).

Tausig was one of the first American male epee fencers to consistently perform well at the World Cup level.

Top opponents
The list of Olympic Medalists and World Champions he beat in individual competition include: Geza Imre, Hughes Obry, Ivan Kovacs, Alfredo Rota, Fabrice Jeannet, Pavel Kolobkov, Frederic Delpla, Fabian Schmidt, Attilla Fekete, Erik Boisse, Krisztián Kulcsár, Philippe Boisse, Remy Delhomme, Paolo Milanoli, Carlos Pedroso, Mikhail Tichko.

Racing Club results
With the Racing Club de France he took the Gold Medal at the French Circuit (Strasbourg, 1998), the Silver Medal at the Paris Championships (1995), the Bronze Medal at the Paris Championships (1994, 1997), and 5th place at the French National Championships (Limoges, 1995).

After retiring from fencing
After returning to New York, Tausig earned a Master’s Degree in Counseling Psychology from New York University (Steinhardt, 2011), completed a 4-year program in Psychoanalysis at the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy (2015), and an EdD, with Distinction, from University of Western States in Sport & Performance Psychology (2017).

Since 2014 Tausig has worked as a Sports & Performance Consultant helping competitive athletes to improve their mental game and find greater success in practice and performance. Past clients include junior high school athletes trying to make the varsity team, World Champions, and Olympic Medalists. He worked with Race Imboden during his historic 2014/2015 season when he became the first male American Fencer to win the overall World Cup Title, and with Nzingha Prescod when she took the Bronze Medal in the 2015 World Championships.

He is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor in New York State, a Nationally Board Certified Counselor (National Board of Certified Counselors) and a Certified Mental Performance Consultant (Association for Applied Sport Psychology)

Tausig is also on the United States Olympic Committee Sports Sciences Registry.

On May 30th, 2019, Tausig was voted into the United States Fencing Association Hall of Fame for the Class of 2020. Because of Covid, that induction took place in Minneapolis on July 5th, 2022.

Author
On December 21, 2021, he published his first book, "George and the Dragon" ISBN 9780578346367

Miscellaneous

 * He is the Founder of Myinnervision, a sport & performance psychology company.
 * Tausig was the first fencer sponsored by PowerBar
 * He learned French while living in Paris
 * He lives with his wife and children in New York